The People's Republic of China

The communist takeover of the mainland in 1949 set the scene for
building a new society built on a Marxist-Leninist model replete with class
struggle and
proletarian politics fashioned and directed by the CCP. The People’s Republic
of China was
barely established (October 1, 1949) when it perceived a threat from the United
States, which
was at war in North Korea, and elected to support its neighbor, the new communist
state, the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Chinese People’s Volunteer
Army invaded the
Korean Peninsula in October 1950 and, along with its North Korean ally, enjoyed
initial military
success and then a two-year stalemate, which culminated in an armistice signed
on July 27, 1953.
Meanwhile, China seized control of Tibet. It also had embarked on a political
rectification
movement against “enemies of the state” and promoting “class
struggle” under the aegis of
agrarian reform as part of the “transition to socialism.”

Periods of consolidation and economic development facilitated by President
Liu Shaoqi (1898– 1969) and Premier Zhou were severely altered by disastrous
anti-intellectual (such as the Hundred Flowers Campaign, 1957), economic (the
Great Leap Forward, 1958–59), and political (the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, 1966–76) experiments directed by Mao and his supporters. During
this time, China had broken with the Soviet Union by 1959, fought a border war
with India in 1962, and skirmished with Soviet troops in 1969. In 1969 Mao anointed
Lin Biao (1908–71), a radical People’s Liberation Army marshal,
as his heir apparent, but by 1971 Lin was dead, the result of an airplane crash
in Mongolia following an alleged coup attempt against his mentor. Less radical
leaders such as Zhou and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping (1904– 97), who had
been politically rehabilitated after his disgrace early in the Cultural Revolution,
asserted some control, and negotiations were initiated with the United States,
ending a generation of extreme animosity toward Washington. The 1976 death of
Mao ended the extremist influence in the party, and, under the leadership of
Deng Xiaoping and his supporters, China began a period of pragmatic economic
reforms and opening itself to the outside world.

Reform-era activities began in earnest in 1978 and eventually made China one
of the largest
world economies and trading partners as well as an emerging regional military
power. The Four
Modernizations (agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national
defense) became the
preeminent agenda within the party, state, and society. The well-being of China’s
people
increased substantially, especially along coastal areas and in urban areas involved
in
manufacturing for the world market. Yet, politics, the so-called “fifth
modernization,” occurred
at too slow a pace for the emerging generation. China’s incipient democracy
movement was
subdued in 1978–79 at the very time that China’s economic reforms
were being launched. As
Deng consolidated his control of China, the call for political reform came to
the fore again in the
mid-1980s, and pro-reform leaders were placed in positions of authority: Zhao
Ziyang (1919–
2005) was appointed premier, and Hu Yaobang (1915–89) CCP general secretary.
Deng himself,
satisfied with being the “power behind the throne,” never held a
top position. The democracy
movement, however, was violently suppressed by the military in the 1989 Tiananmen
incident.

In the years after Tiananmen, conservative reformers led by Deng protégé
Jiang Zemin (later to
become president of China, chairman of both the state Central Military Commission
and party
Central Military Commission, and general secretary of the CCP) endured and eventually
overcame world criticism. When Deng went into retirement, the rising generation
of technocrats
ruled China and oversaw its modernization. Political progress gradually occurred.
Term limits
were placed on political and governmental positions at all levels, succession
became orderly and
contested elections began to take place at the local level. Tens of thousands
of Chinese students
went overseas to study; many returned to participate in the building of modern
China, some to
become millionaires in the new “socialist economy with Chinese characteristics.”
As a sign of its
emerging superpower status, in October 2003 China launched its first “taikonaut”
into space on a
22-hour journey. The second space launch, with two taikonauts, took place in
October 2005 and
involved a 115-hour flight. In the next stage of space exploration, China plans
to conduct a space
walk in 2007 and a rendezvous docking in orbit between 2009 and 2012. It also
plans to launch a
moon-orbiting unmanned spacecraft by 2007 and to land an unmanned probe on the
moon by
2010.

As the twenty-first century began, a new generation of leaders emerged and gradually
replaced
the old. Position by position, Jiang Zemin gradually gave up his leadership
role and by 2004 had
moved into a position of elder statesman, still with obvious influence exerted
through his
protégés who were embedded at all levels of the government. The
“politics in command” of the
Maoist past were subliminally present when technocrat Hu Jintao emerged—by
2004—as the
preeminent leader (president of China, chairman of both the state Central Military
Commission
and party Central Military Commission, and general secretary of the CCP) with
grudging
acceptance by Jiang and his supporters.